


glad he's gone

by isahorcrux



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Accidental Bonding, Book 6: Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Canon Compliant, F/M, POV Ginny Weasley, Unexpected friendships, girl talk, missing moment
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-16
Updated: 2019-07-16
Packaged: 2020-06-29 19:10:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,846
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19836691
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/isahorcrux/pseuds/isahorcrux
Summary: Of all the things Lavender could have been crying over, Ginny had not expected this.  Granted, she knew Ron wanted to end things with Lavender just as much as she’d wanted to end things with Dean.  But, she supposed she was a bit preoccupied with her own public break-up to notice Ron’s first romance imploding a mere few feet away.  She briefly wondered if Lavender was just as oblivious to her relationship ending as Ginny was to her’s.





	glad he's gone

Ginny Weasley knew the stares would be bad the morning after she’d ended things with Dean, but she hadn’t banked on the pointed whispers that followed her. Nothing terribly insulting, it was mostly girls wondering how she could have broken up with a sensitive artist like Dean. She’d heard some of the boys whisper to their friends that they’d better get a move on, as she was liable to get scooped up quickly by another boy. Those whispers made her laugh. She was done with dating, done with boys for the time being, thank you very much. She had to focus on the Quidditch final, not to mention her impending O.W.L.s. Hermione had already offered to draw her up a study schedule. She’d have preferred Hermione’s Ancient Runes notes, but that was like asking Hermoine to give her right arm. 

Perhaps it would have been better if she hadn’t ended things so publically, Ginny thought as she walked past two girls muttering something about, ‘she’s only ended things because there’s a new guy she’s interested in.’ In her defense every other time she’d attempted to politely end things with Dean, usually behind a tapestry or in a deserted corridor, he’d convince her that they should keep trying to make the relationship work. Dean had already tried to approach her twice today and it wasn’t even lunchtime yet. Ginny had flung herself into hidden passageways or the closest girls’ bathroom to avoid what would become Dean trying to convince her that they were good together, and they shouldn’t let something as silly as male chivalry keep them apart. Which is actually what he’d shouted after she fled to the girls’ dormitory after their very public break-up in the Gryffindor common room. 

To be fair, he was right. Dean helping her through the portrait hole really wasn’t a big deal. In fact, most girls would have loved it - his warm hand on the small of their back, leading them over to a more secluded armchair for some snogging after too many hours spent in the library. And at one point, Ginny had adored it, all of it: the jealous stares from girls as Dean walked her to class, the oohs and awws over the little doodles Dean had drawn for her, the snogging behind tapestries. But, as Dean wanted to take their relationship to the next level, Ginny’s interest had started to wane. If she was being honest with herself, the only real reason she’d stopped being interested in Dean was because she was bored. Dean was lovely, sure, but after the whole wooing period, a few first dates, and some heavy snogging, Ginny’s heart just wasn’t in it. The flutter in her chest waned, until one day, just before the Christmas holidays, it was gone entirely. The more she thought about it, the more she wondered if she was ever interested in Dean, or just liked the attention he paid her.

Around the end of January was the first time Ginny broached the subject of she and Dean, perhaps, not being the best fit for each other. They’d just finished a particularly heated snogging session up in the Astronomy Tower, and Ginny hoped that Dean would be in a good enough mood that he wouldn’t be too offended by her suggestion to change a few things about himself within their relationship. Unfortunately, Dean took her question to mean she was feeling insecure about how he saw her, which led him to smother her in affection that she was already drowning in. 

Valentine’s Day, a couple of weeks later, was a complete disaster, which resulted in both Ginny and Dean in tears. But, as Ginny lay in bed, listening to the rest of her dormmates giggling, she couldn't help but be a bit relieved to be shot of Dean. Unfortunately, Dean hadn’t interpreted the night’s events to mean they were broken up. He met her in the common room with a hand drawn card and some chocolate. By March, Ginny was looking for any excuse to pick a fight with Dean; from the way he made fun of Harry getting clobbered by McClaggen to the way he admired Parvati’s charm work at dinner. But the more she snapped at him and lost her temper, the harder Dean seemed to cling to her. And now, in the middle of April, and less than twenty-four hours after she and Dean’s official break-up, Ginny was only just beginning to realize it would have saved her and Dean a lot of pain and heartbreak, if she’d just ended it quickly and early. Easier said than done.

While she’d broken up with Michael Corner the year before, breaking up with Dean wasn’t the same. Michael had been a bad loser, arrogant, and generally awful to her when Gryffindor had soundly beaten Ravenclaw last year. It’d been easier then, telling Michael to fuck off. Dean was, well, Dean was nice. He hadn’t actually done anything wrong. Ginny had just realized her feelings for him were mere infatuation. She didn’t dislike Dean. She didn’t want to see him hurt or sad. Besides, Dean was, for all intents and purposes, a boy any girl would wish to date. What if Ginny never met another boy like Dean? What if she was destined to only date boys like Michael? Or worse, what if she spent the rest of her life being manipulated by boys like Tom? Breaking up with Dean had not assuaged these worries.

On her way to Charms, as Ginny rounded a corner, she stopped cold in her tracks as she spotted Dean waiting with the rest of the 5th year Gryffindors outside her classroom. Her body flashed hot and then cold rather quickly. Without thinking, she pivoted and headed back down the corridor as far away from Charms as she could get. Two flights of stairs up, Ginny ducked into the first girl’s bathroom she saw.

Unfortunately, though it was already five minutes into lessons, the bathroom was occupied by Lavender Brown, eyes puffy and red rimmed. Her face was decorated with mascara tear tracks and her nose showed signs of recent sniffling. Ginny wondered if she’d ever seen a more broken person. As Ginny’s brown eyes met Lavender’s watery hazel eyes, Lavender’s expression of sorrow changed to a mixture of anger and revulsion.

“Oh, it’s you,” sneered Lavender turning away from Ginny.

“Uhm,” said Ginny, not quite sure what to say.

“Don’t let me keep you, then,” Lavender snapped.

But Ginny didn’t move. Sure she and Lavender had never been friends, but they’d never been enemies. The part of Ginny, who desperately wanted to find a more private bathroom and skive off the rest of Charms in peace, chalked Lavender’s rudeness up to her not wanting anyone to see her in distress. On the other hand, the nosey part of Ginny knew that something else was up.

“Are you alright, Lavender?”

Lavender rolled her eyes.

“Is that a joke? If it is, it’s not very funny.”

“It isn’t a joke.”

“You can’t be that dim, can you?”

“Looks like I am,” said Ginny, her temper creeping up.

Lavender stared at Ginny for a full minute, slack-jawed and close to tears, before finally whispering, “he dumped me.”

“What?”

“Your brother, he dumped me. Well, technically I dumped him,” new tears falling thick and fast as Lavender continued, “I saw him coming out of the boy’s dormitory last night with Hermione Granger.”

Ginny started, “What?”

Lavender stared at Ginny, “Surely you knew. The whole house was practically in the common room when they came down. He said he wasn’t doing anything with her,” she said attempting to dry her eyes, “but how daft does he think I am?”

Of all the things Lavender could have been crying over, Ginny had not expected this. Granted, she knew Ron wanted to end things with Lavender just as much as she’d wanted to end things with Dean. But, she supposed she was a bit preoccupied with her own public break-up to notice Ron’s first romance imploding a mere few feet away. She briefly wondered if Lavender was just as oblivious to her relationship ending as Ginny was to her’s.

“I really thought he liked me,” wailed Lavender, “I thought he was over Hermione. Did he ever say anything to you?”

“Uhm…”

“I mean he must have,” Lavender continued, “you’re his sister.”

“We don’t really talk about that stuff,” said Ginny shuffling her feet awkwardly, “if he’d said anything, he’d probably tell Harry. Are you sure Harry wasn’t up there with them? You know how the three of them are…” Ginny trailed off.

“No,” hiccuped Lavender, “It was just him and Hermione. I can’t believe he would do this. I can’t believe  _ she _ would do this. I mean I know we weren’t close, but we’ve shared a dormitory for almost six years. If it was the other way around, I would NEVER.”

Ginny didn’t think it would be a good idea to point that that everyone except Ron and Hermione themselves knew they had feelings for each other and by Lavender going after Ron at the beginning of the school year, she’d basically done exactly what she was criticizing Hermione for. Ginny sighed and reached out to pull Lavender into an awkward hug. Lavender stiffened slightly.

“Ginny?”

“Yes?”

“What are you doing?”

“Erm, hugging you.”

“Yes, but why?”

“Because my brother’s an idiot and you’re upset he ended things,” Ginny said, a little confused.

“I broke up with him, remember?” Lavender sniffled.

“Right, but you’re still upset, so…”

“It’s because you feel guilty isn’t it.”

“Well, I -”

“You shouldn’t,” Lavender said as she pulled out of Ginny’s hug and moved back towards the mirrors, examining her puffy eyes, “You’re not guilty just because he’s your brother.”

Ginny knew she was right. And she knew she didn’t feel guilty about the way Ron and Lavender’s relationship ended. She was only a twinge embarrassed that she didn’t know they’d broken up the night before until she ran headlong into Lavender crying in the girls’ toilets.

“I broke up with Dean,” she said abruptly, “Last night.”

“So I guess it was a bad night for love all around,” Lavender sighed, looking forlornly at Ginny.

“Yeah,” Ginny agreed running her hands over her skirt, unsure what to do with her hands.

“What happened?” Lavender asked turning to face Ginny.

Lavender’s eyes shone with a bright mist that can only come about through females bonding over matters of the heart. She suddenly looked less loss, a little less upset. Though Ginny wasn’t particularly cut up about her relationship crashing and burning, she was glad Lavender imagined her to be so, since it seemed to help Lavender feel less miserable.

“We just weren’t right for each other,” Ginny said simply, looking down at her trainers, noticing one of the laces was undone.

She didn’t move to fix it. Lavender looked back towards the mirror and began to splash cold water on her face, trying to soothe the redness enveloping her tired eyes. Every so often she would pause and stare into the mirror, as though forgetting Ginny was there. She picked at a couple spots on her face and wrinkled her nose a few times. Ginny wondered what such a good looking girl would see in a mirror that would cause that kind of self critique. Even in sorrow, Lavender was still beautiful.

“No,” said Lavender finally, wiping her face with a napkin, “You weren’t right for each other.”

“Oh?” said Ginny, not aware that Lavender had given her and Dean’s relationship a second though.

“No,” Lavender continued, “You need someone who doesn’t treat you like glass.”

“Yeah,” said Ginny, unsure what she was saying, “I’m kind of giving up on dating, I think.”

_ Am I really having this conversation with Lavender Brown? _

“Oh, that’s a shame,” said Lavender as she turned back to the mirror, pulling mascara from her bag.

“Why is that?”

Lavender didn’t answer right away, content to paint several coats of the inky black solution over her long lashes. Ginny coughed a few times, a little curious as to why Lavender thought she’d best jump back into the dating pool head first. But, Lavender ignored her, now pulling a bit of lipstick from her bag. Only after she applied two coats of the peony shade did she turn back towards Ginny.

“Well, it’s very clear you’ve caught Harry Potter’s eye.”

Ginny’s heart stopped, “What?”

Lavender smirked, “Don’t tell me you haven’t noticed him trying to be covert about staring at you every time you’re in the same room.”

_ No. _ Ginny thought.  _ I hadn’t. _

Ginny also wondered how Lavender, who’d spent the better part of the year glued to her brother, had noticed. But, Ginny thought that probably wouldn’t be the best question to ask, now that she’d stopped crying. True, Harry had always been one to wear his heart on his sleeve. It was so easy to see when he was frustrated, extremely happy, or embarrassed. But then, Ginny began to wonder, how had she not seen it? Shouldn’t she, who’d had a crush on him since the moment she laid her eyes on him when he asked her mum for help getting on the platform, have noticed that he’d started to feel something more than brotherly towards her? She remembered back to her second and third year when she’d read into every interaction she’d had with Harry, willing the replayed scenes to prove that he liked her. She couldn’t really remember when she’d stopped doing that, or why for that matter. Probably when she’d started dating Michael Corner. But, no, that couldn’t be right. Ginny remembered over-examining one afternoon she’d spent cleaning with a very surly Harry the summer before her 4th year. She supposed she started doing this little ritual less frequently when she’d started dating Michael, but hadn’t fully stopped until... until when?

_ When he all but told you that he’d forgotten about your little adventure into the Chamber of Secrets,  _ a snide voice, that sounded a bit too similar to Tom whispered in her mind.

Ginny hated to let  _ that  _ voice win, but he was probably right. Lavender coughed, and Ginny realized she had been staring into space not saying anything for quite some time.

“Erm, no. I hadn’t.”

Lavender looked at her gob smacked, “Didn’t you send him a singing Valentine in my second year? Do you not still have a crush on him?”

“Until last night I did have a boyfriend, Lavender.”

“Oh Ginny,” Lavender smiled, “You can’t possibly tell me your feelings waned even though you were dating someone else.”

Ginny raised an eyebrow.

“I mean,” said Lavender moving towards the door, bag in hand, “Just look at your brother with Hermione.”

And with that, Lavender flipped her long, curly hair over her shoulder and departed. Ginny just stared after her. Lavender had to be messing with her, as some weird twisted way of getting her revenge on Ron. A few moments later, Ginny left the bathroom and headed back towards Gryffindor common room, determined to push what Lavender had said out of her mind. Easier said than done.

Over the next few days, Ginny started watching Harry very closely for signs that he might have feelings for her. Ginny whole-heartedly believed that she’d watch Harry for a few days and be proven right very early on that Harry felt nothing more for her than he felt for Ron or Hermione. Probably a little less, if Ginny was being honest with herself. But that’s not at all what happened. Whenever they were in the Great Hall, in the common room, or on the Quidditch pitch, when he thought no one was looking, Harry would gaze at Ginny as though she were a complicated puzzle he was determined to solve. A few times, Ginny purposely caught his eye, causing him to blush and turn back to whatever he was supposed to be doing. But just because he was looking at her, it didn’t mean he fancied her, did it?

But as the weeks skipped past her break-up with Dean, Ginny noticed Harry was getting bolder. He would walk with her to and from Quidditch practice; often waiting for her with Ron while she was still in the showers. Whenever she would study in the common room, he and usually Hermione would join her, offering bits of advice for her O.W.L.s. And, as the weather began to warm, he began to find any excuse to touch her. A pat on the back after a goal well scored or an accidental brush of the hand at breakfast when they both reached for the same pitcher of pumpkin juice.

Finally, at the beginning of May, Ginny had enough evidence to convince her once skeptical self that Harry fancied her. Or at least thought she was attractive enough to stare at whenever he thought he could get away with it. The only question now was, what was she going to do about it?

**Author's Note:**

> Of course I got distracted and wrote another one shot when I should be working on my multi-chapter.
> 
> This work is named after/inspired by "Glad He's Gone" by Tove Lo.


End file.
